Topic: An old Refrigerator = a Kiln!

[Ken (OP)]

Do a Google search for 'kiln' and you will find all types of setups for drying stuff like wood, this one is simple and best of all it's free. 

When I got into wood turning one of the first things I started doing was staying on the look out for free wood and that meant collecting trees that had fallen or been cut down for some reason. It didn't take long to amass a rather large pile of wood that needed to be cut into turning stock and one of the steps in that process was drying the wood. There are a multitude of ways to dry the turning stock and this is one of those ways.

So... first you find a (free) refrigerator that someone needs to get rid of, you load it up and bring it home, you give it a good cleaning and then you drill a bunch of 2.5 inch holes in it. After that you install a small computer case fan at the bottom of this free fridge, place a small light bulb in the bottom of the unit and then you load in some wood that needs to be dried and fire it up.   

There are a few things that it still needs, like a light in the bottom, but other than that it's working. 

[Skhilled]

Interesting...so, how long does it take to dry the wood?

[Ken (OP)]

 There are any number of variables, but the basic idea is this... if your wood is not totally dry, you can rough turn a bowl and leave it about twice as thick as it will be in it's final form, then if left to sit on a shelf it will need about one-two+ years to dry enough so that it can be remounted onto your lathe and turned to the final shape and thickness dimensions.

A kiln, like this one, can speed up that process... making a bowl, or other turning, ready to remount in a few weeks, or a few months depending on the size of the turning and the species of the wood.

Of course, it's not always that simple, but that gets you going in the right direction. 

[Skhilled]

Ah, ok...